Is ‘The Fancy Mess’ and ‘Organised Despair’ in Martial Arts a Reality or Is it More a Question of Context And Intention? Bruce Lee is often quoted as stating traditional martial arts offer little more than systems of seemingly pointless, inefficient and unproductive movements. He referred to to this as a ‘fancy mess’ in such quotes as: “Instead of facing combat in its suchness, then, most systems of martial art accumulate a ‘fancy mess’ that distorts and cramps their practiti

There's always been a part of me that admires a strong character. I guess it comes from my family, my mother and grandmother were very strong characters. They weren't without their days of doubt and periods of insecurity but on the whole they were two of life's true warriors. No situation was ever going to be one that either broke or truly defeated them. This mindset rubbed off onto me, my brother and sister. It's often easy to look from the outside at the situation of others

The Urban Dictionary defines ‘old school’ as: “Anything that is from an earlier era and looked upon with high regard or respect....” There are many people in the martial arts and combat sport fraternity who would and do consider training methods to be worthwhile only if they are indeed ‘old school’. Better yet are the ‘old school’ protagonists who share this ideology, often evidenced in grainy videos and pictures of training sessions from yester-year. Here they desperately ma

The mentality with which we approach any situation is the most fundamental of all principles. Deep consideration must be given to the fact that all physical actions are ultimately expressions of our mentality at that moment. In very simple terms our underlying mentality guides the formation of cognitive strategies. These cognitive strategies then facilitate the determination of specific behavioural routines or tactics in response to a given situation or environment. These tac

"Don't get set into one form, adapt it and build your own, and let it grow, be like water." Bruce Lee "Life is a series of natural and spontaneous changes. Don't resist them; that only creates sorrow. Let reality be reality. Let things flow naturally forward in whatever way they like." Lao Tzu, Tae Teh Ching The ability to move and flow with circumstances underpins efficiency. In life, as well as specifically in martial arts, being in a state of flow with your opponent (here

Life constantly provides us with information. As a premise, this seems irrefutable and logical. For example, if we study a subject, we obtain more information about that subject. Does this mean that we actually learn more, or simply that we have more information about it? What we do with that information, how we process it and interpret it, is ultimately governed by a myriad of combining processes which are biologically, psychologically and socially based. Each of us have ind

Ensuring longevity in the traditional martial arts The BBC recently posted an article on their news pages concerning the prevalence of injuries within yoga teachers. (Source: https://www.bbc.com/news/health-50181155 Yoga teachers ‘risking serious hip problems’ by Caroline Parkinson 3/11/2019) The article focused on the increased risk that yoga participants place on their bodies (particularly in respect of hip health) due to “pushing their bodies into “prescribed” positions wh

Traditional views of the martial arts would have us believe that what the Master says, the student does. Unquestioning and conforming to all, the student is required to practice and rehearse routines and techniques, the application and use of which they sometimes have little or no idea of. Given the cultural proclivities of the societies in which many traditional arts developed, the issue of conformity and unquestioning adherence is considered central to the “correct” practic

“You only had one job!” “Yeah I did...but which one was it...Instructor? Teacher? Coach? Mentor?” In many cases the four titles of instructor, teacher, coach and mentor are used in an interchangeable way. Little regard, if any, is given to any specific differences between these roles. On the very surface of it, there are indeed broad similarities across these roles, generically all being concerned with the development and leadership of others towards a defined task. A deeper

“Comfort Zone” is a greatly overused and cliched phrase, coined by psychologists in the 1980’s. From its inception, it was grabbed up and used by cheesy corporations and “pop” psychologists in their bid to have us all believe that we can never achieve great things if we don’t face some unfamiliar and uncomfortable personal challenges. A simple Google search of the phrase gives the first hit as a dictionary definition reading: “COMFORT ZONE noun a situation where one feels saf